Musasa One Stop Centre Assists 500 GBV Survivors
The Hopley One Stop Centre being run by Musasa Project says it has served a total of 500 women and girls who experienced gender-based violence (GBV) and other forms of violence over the past 10 months.
Hopley is supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community Development.
Speaking during a visit to the centre by the UNFPA East and Southern Africa Director, Lydia Zigomo, Musasa Project Program Manager, Sharon Matingwina said:
We usually implement once a week in a month, and we rotate stations but this is the most common one and strategically so because it attracts a lot of women.
The entry point can be coming in for clinical services that can be coming in youth empowerment services so it’s very strategic, we get to meet a lot of women and adolescents girls and young women.
We work closely with the Victim Friendly Unit (VFU), the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) and the Ministry of Women Affairs so that we give a comprehensive package of services.
We have our Information hub in case someone just wasn’t to get a flier or just basic information about what we are offering here in Hopley and all the other centres that we are implementing.
She said a large number of young women come through to get services and most of them are young mothers or pregnant teenagers.
The young girls and women are given dignity kits to ensure they have access to sanitary wear, toiletries and other hygiene kits.
Matingwina said the One Stop Centre was now receiving GBV clients from farming areas around Harare. She said:
We have also realized that in the past weeks, some survivors are coming from farming sites such as retreat and Stoneridge.
We have tried to make sure that our mobile centre is not only stationed here but we go inside Hopley with our One Stop Center just to make sure women from all works of life get comprehensive packages of care.
